EDITORIAL - Icon of freedom

The United Nations Security Council observed a minute of silence as the world joined South Africans yesterday in mourning the passing of Nelson Mandela. The Nobel Peace laureate was a great leader in every sense: a man with greatness of heart who led by example.

Twenty-seven years in detention, 18 of them at hard labor in the dusty quarries of Robben Island, failed to break the spirit of Mandela, who inspired his nation’s relentless struggle against apartheid. When the battle was won and Mandela became his country’s first black president, he showed greatness of spirit, forgiving his jailers and torturers. He urged his nation’s black majority to do the same as they dismantled the apparatus of state-sponsored racial oppression.

Mandela then showed exemplary leadership in the difficult path of national reconciliation. The world’s most famous political prisoner did not want his nation to be consumed by hatred and descend into post-apartheid violence. Instead he sought to rally black and white behind common passions such as sports. He worked for more equitable economic growth, so that his country’s enormous natural wealth could benefit even impoverished black communities.

The anti-apartheid struggle took a toll on Mandela’s personal life, and some quarters complained that more should have been done to make apartheid oppressors account for their crimes. But “South Africa’s great black hope” opted for unity and peace in the difficult transition from white minority rule.

In another gesture of leadership, Mandela did not hang on to his post, instead presiding over the peaceful transfer of power in a democratic setting at the appointed time. Many things could have gone wrong when the apartheid apparatus was dismantled. South Africa pulled off the transition in an impressive way, thanks largely to Nelson Mandela. South Africa’s icon is deeply mourned by the world.